A.J. Jacobs poses these questions at the start of his essay in the New York Times last September detailing his quest to make* dinner via 3D printer. No, this is not a post about attempting to print a hamburger. This is a post about a machine that spits out chintzy plastic trinkets. And useful things.
The other night I was like, "Yo, Greg, how these things work?!"
I actually didn't ask that. I understand the basic operations of 3D printers. But although I had seen his collection of Ultimakers spit out countless Air Dock† parts, I had not put together how the whole process worked. So what I actually asked was, "How does the file get from the computer to the printer?" Essentially, how does the printer know what to print? My printer at home knows what to print because it's connected directly to my computer. My printer at work knows what to print because it's connected via a network cable. But Greg's printers are on top of his washer and dryer, so, you know, wtf?
What I found out was, Greg has a very advanced washer and dryer. They are hooked up to his computer via a very convoluted network of water, electric, and network cables that send signals to the printers. Not really. What I really found out was that long story short, the printers have SD card slots. Long story long, I found this out by printing a Hello Hamburger.
"What do you want to print?" Greg asked. I stood there biting my lip for a good several minutes trying to come up with something useful. In the end, I gave up on the "useful" part and settled on, what else, a Hello Kitty. OMG DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN DOWNLOAD 3D FILES OF LIKE ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET?!?! This was actually big news to me, as I figured picking something to print would also involve creating a 3D file in something like AutoCAD or SketchUp. But no, they're just out there, on things like the Thingiverse. A search for "Hello Kitty" on Thingiverse yields a variety of Hello Kitty and non-Hello Kitty items of varying quality and usefulness. I chose "Hello Hamburger," because who wouldn't want a random plastic Hello Kitty face meant to be used as a hamburger patty press. Download "Hello Hamburger," open with Cura to resize and such, save file to SD card, take SD card from computer to printer, select some things on the printer's menu, watch printer spit out one Hello Hamburger, and woohoo, I have a chintzy plastic trinket!
*see also, prepare, fix**, cook and any other of several verbs used to describe assembling a meal
**perhaps I will at some point write a post detailing how I do not like the word fix used to describe preparing a meal
†Order one of these. Greg makes them and Greg is awesome so you should buy one. Also they are aweome if you want to conveniently charge your phone wirelessly. Also Blogger is telling me wirelessly is not a word.
